Literature Index

The present investigation compared two statistics attitude scales, the Statistics Attitude Survey (SAS) by Roberts and Bilderback (1980) and the Attitudes Toward Statistics (ATS) by Wise (1985). It was concluded that the ATS was essentially an alternate form of the previously developed SAS.

There seems to be an irrevocable link between intuitions (intuitive ideas, intuitive conceptions) and theory (abstract models, concepts). It is not possible to separate these two aspects, each of which is necessary to understand the other. For such aspects, not really separable without loss of genuine meaning, it has become popular to say they are complementary.

In teaching undergraduate time series courses, we have used a mixture of various statistical packages. We have finally been able to teach all of the applied concepts within one statistical package; R. This article describes the process that we use to conduct a thorough analysis of a time series. An example with a data set is provided. We compare these results to an identical analysis performed on Minitab.

This paper discusses a curriculum, called Reasoning Under Uncertainty (RUU), which emphasizes reasoning and learning-by-doing as methods for helping students understand the hows and whys of statistics.

Too often students leave their first statistics course with at best a fuzzy understanding of basic statistical concepts and procedures. A disconcertingly high proportion cannot adequately describe or perform a t-test, for example, when taking subsequent courses. This suggests that a different approach to teaching and learning is necessary, particularly for graduate students who will need statistical tools in their research. Rote memorization of facts does not provide the preparation requisite for graduate research. A constructivist approach in course design could provide a learning environment in which students move beyond lower level cognitive skill development. Initial implementation of this approach has produced encouragingly positive results.

This paper is a follow-up of a report given by Stout and Smeltz (1982) at last year's conference. Together, these two reports examine the extent that non-traditional teaching techniques in statistics are being utilized in colleges and universities as well as the perceived effectiveness of these techniques by the individuals using them. This report focuses on the specific advantages and disadvantages of each nontraditional technique as outlined by survey respondents. The information obtained in this report will provide an indication of the overall impression of each technique. It should also be useful to prospective users as they analyze the costs and benefits of adopting these new techniques. Finally, it should provide a basis of knowledge for innovators as they attempt to improve the operationalization of each technique.

This article describes a classroom activity designed to stimulate students to think creatively about methods of selecting a representative sample from a population. Students are presented with a data set consisting of gender, SAT verbal score, SAT mathematics score, and high school grade point average for 317 freshmen from North Carolina State University. The students, who have not yet studied sampling, work in groups of three or four to generate three possible methods for selecting a representative sample of 20 freshmen from the population of 317. Each group uses its proposed methods to select three samples and computes various summary statistics and plots for the variables in each sample. The students are then given corresponding information for the entire population. After comparing sample statistics and population parameters, the groups evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed sampling methods. During the two semesters that I have used this activity in my Statistics 101 class, students have "invented" simple random sampling, systematic sampling, stratified sampling, and various combinations thereof.

Many of today's university undergraduate curricula include two seemingly conflicting themes: (1) increase the quality of teaching to include emphasis on pedagogical elements, such as active learning, in the undergraduate statistics classroom; and (2) cope with a decrease in teaching resources. In this paper, a means by which a department of mathematics or statistics can maintain and increase its standards of teaching excellence in introductory statistics while coping with ever-increasing budgetary pressures is proposed. This process involves promoting what we call cooperative teaching, applying the concepts

This article describes the "Chance" course that was created based, in part, on Chance magazine. The aim of the course is to study important current news items whose understanding requires a knowledge of chance concepts.